Conscription evasion or draft evasion is any successful attempt to elude a government-imposed obligation to serve in the military forces of one's nation. Sometimes draft evasion involves refusing to comply with the military draft laws of one's nation. Illegal draft evasion is said to have characterized every military conflict of the 20th and 21st centuries, in which at least one party of such conflict has enforced conscription. Such evasion is generally considered to be a criminal offense, and laws against it go back thousands of years.
Anti-draft meeting held by women in New York City, 1917
US Secretary of War Newton Baker drawing the first number in the World War I draft lottery, 1917
Tribunal for conscientious objectors in Britain during World War II
Muhammad Ali refused induction in 1967.
Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with unauthorized absence (UA) or absence without leave, which are temporary forms of absence.
The Defector, by Octav Băncilă, 1906
Deserteur (Дезертир), by Ilya Repin, 1917
Armenian soldiers in 1919, with deserters as prisoners
A 1918 cartoon by Cecil Hartt making light of the high incidence of soldiers going absent without leave in the Australian Imperial Force